I have a theory. You were so bored from the lackluster food served at the restaurant you were eating, you spent too much time thinking about what pose you would make when someone took the picture. Now, if you were eating at Malkay Satay Hut, you wouldn’t have had this problem since you’d be too involved with the food…

I suspect, as gaijin, Raymond need not concern himself about the masculinity of his pose overmuch. I recall some incident where my choice of food apparently got some snickers from some Japanese folks (back when I lived in Japan) since only women ordered that particular food item (whatever it was). However, as gaijin, nobody really held it against me as anything more than a bit of amusement.

Actually, as gaijin, you can get away with a lot of peculiar behavior in Japan, since by default, you’re already too weird for Japan. I don’t think you can easily commit too deep a social faux-pas in Japan, if you’re an outlander.

Oh my Gosh… that is SO true… you kinda look like a (Japanese) girl… (not much, just a bit).

That oughta be the most ironic thing one could expect from a experienced, seasoned, hard-core Microsoft engineer. Not that there is something wrong with that (and please, don’t get me started with the macho/feminist topic: I’m sure there are very good (female) Microsoft engineers, it’s just that the (traditional) stereotype of a hard-core software engineer is, by default, male.

Besides, I alse have ended up looking not very masculine in a bunch of photos (or just plain awful, as I’m everything but fotogenic) :(

What does a superhero pose look like(Martha Stewart)? Does the term Hero subsume the term heroine. Is heroine a drug or a female hero. Gosh, I get so confused so easily. I’d rather just avoid the references to gender… and use concrete examples, rather than super hero cite a specific one etc. It makes the point without perpetuating stereotypes that in all likelihood do contain prejudices.

I’ll go and put my pink fluffy slippers on now (note I didnt say ‘girly’ slippers, I cited a specific).

What kind of name is Betsy? By itself it might be a foreign-sounding nickname, but in combination with the country where your office is located, it tends to look like you have Japanese ancestry but not Japanese citizenship yourself.

It’s a family name. I don’t quite see the connection to knights but families often include both males and females.

Also, although 青木 is two Chinese characters just as Aoki is four Italian characters, the language is Japanese. If you speak English you’ll say "blue tree". If you speak Italian then you’ll say two Italian words instead of "blue tree". If you speak Chinese then you’ll say two Chinese words instead of "blue tree".